Here's from my personal experience. I owned the strawberry dottyback, and I loved it. Had tons of personality, and swam in and out of rocks all the time. For the most part peaceful, but it ate my sexy shrimp i had in my girlfriend jbj. Also a few days later, mr. dotty died. I was puzzled there, but then after his death, I bought the bi-color blenny. He's mr. territorial for sure. Anybody that comes near his "home" he'll bite them something fierce. He's cool though as he munches up all the algae off the rock for the most part. After a month, he adapted to eating flakes and mysis, so I'm lucky he'll just eat anything thats food, being he should be an herbivore. Just watch them two, hopefully they're personalitys wont crash, otherwise they'll be biting each other all the time and disturbing other pieces in your tank. Good luck though and keep us updated with your personal experiences with them.newnanoreefgirl said:
Well cora, I never owned a damsel, but they seem to hold their own and they are also fast. They move around kind of like a clownfish, but more. If the dotty back and blenny have their own little place to chill (lots of hiding areas) your damsel should be fine. I wouldn't get too many fish as you'll end up raising your levels of nitrate. What are you using as filtration? If you have a protein skimmer hooked up, you'll be able to skate by easy with more, but if you have a pico or jbj nano cube, then chances are you'll have less fish, and more softies, LPS, shrooms, hermits, a crab.newnanoreefgirl said:Well, they seem to get along okay, but like you said, the Dottyback gets in trouble if she gets too close to his little spot. He won't give chase though.
In my 21 gal, how many fish would be too many? Could I get a couple of damsels still? Or will they get their butts kicked by Lenny ( the blenny) or my dotty back?
Cora
Good move Cora! I'm glad you were able to spot the problem in time. Yeah that blenny he is a very ticked off fish sometimes. Let me tell you recently..there was a hermit crab where he usually sleeps at night, and (being he wasn't even near that area) he comes out of his hiding spot, swims to the other side of the tank, picks him up and chucks him over like a football over to other side. That's not too bad though....in the past is when mr. blenny was really bad. My girlfriends tank used to look a certain way (aquascapping wise) but how it was setup was the green star polyps were on the left side of the tank, and that was blennys spot to hang out, sleep and whatever, but.......he began to be very destructive. He started biting the stems and fingers right off the green star polyps, and nearly killed them. The GSP would not come out for two weeks! My girlfriend loves the fish and GSP, so what was I to do? I re-aquascaped in a desperate attempt to find a solution, and when I was finished, problem was solved! He found a new home and stopped bothering my GSP. So really it's all in your design, what you have in there, and what other type of fish he doesn't get along with. So far I know he gets along with clownfish, mandarin spotted goby, Cleaner Shrimp, and a neon blue goby that's in there now. No problems anymorenewnanoreefgirl said:Lenny the blenny is going back to the pet store! He is relentlessly chasing the dotty back and beating her up. So, I'm taking him and his rock back! Maybe I'll pick out something else!
Cora
Hope this helps.